Spotty Internet connection? You’re not alone

Internet access has been spotty throughout the Seattle region since a winter storm hit early Monday morning. Some users have reported outages that last for hours, while others complain it’s just slow as molasses in January. (Or November, in this instance.)

The sluggish connection could be due to infrastructure damaged by the storm, but it’s more likely that it’s resulting from a surge in people searching for weather-related information online.

Comcast is the chief provider of Internet and cable services in the Seattle area. The company reports Seattle-area connectivity is strong, and slowness is likely due to an overloaded wireless connection or heavy traffic to a few popular sites.

“It’s kind of like last night on I-5,” spokesman Steve Kipp said. “Everyone’s trying to go to the same place and it’s just going to clog up.”

On a local Twitter feed (@ComcastWA), the company said it’s working to restore services to thousands of customers. Most of those service failures are due to power outages.

“Working quickly to restore service as icy roads allow,” a Comcast representative wrote.

Kipp said most of those customers — about 30,000 at 2 p.m. on Tuesday — are in outlying areas. The Seattle-area infrastructure seems to be sound, he said.

“That seems to be, as far as we know, stable,” he said. “Everything seems to be working fine.”